


stranger

by stonerkun420



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Death, Established Relationship, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Sorry, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Oblivious Lee Donghyuck | Haechan, Poor Lee Donghyuck | Haechan, Psychological Horror, Violence, okay where do i begin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 08:18:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18007211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonerkun420/pseuds/stonerkun420
Summary: renjun turns out to be the only one who notices the dirty smirk on minhyung’s face when he realises no one is paying attention to him anymore





	stranger

**Author's Note:**

> okay where do i even begin lol
> 
> this isn’t as scary as anyone thinks it might be tbh i just felt the need to write and so i did but uh here are some trigger warnings
> 
> tw // murder, vague descriptions of murders, death, mentions of paranormal, angst, & implied murder

donghyuck and minhyung. best friends. boyfriends. donghyuck loves lee minhyung more than anything.

he’s really not been himself lately. it’s getting on the younger boy’s nerves.

donghyuck’s boyfriend, who giggles at any joke whether it’s funny or not, who’s voice cracks in the most awkward of moments and makes him laugh sheepishly. who makes donghyuck’s heart grow four times bigger with every lazy smile he gets to see in the morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lee minhyung, who’s been coming home every night, but only after midnight. every night, he stalks in with dark rings under his eyes and a limp in his stride, only to find donghyuck sitting up on the couch, rubbing his eyes lazily despite how alert he suddenly seems to be. it’s been this way for weeks.

lee minhyung, who’s been ensuring that his donghyuck doesn’t see any of the newspaper clippings from the past month or so.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(“you’re back,” is the first thing donghyuck says to a frozen minhyung in the doorway when this happens for the first time. “it’s so late. where have you been?”

“out.” is all minhyung replies before he sheds his coat, ignoring the way his boyfriend scowls at him.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

donghyuck is laughing at something jaemin had shouted drunkenly, when minhyung walks through the front door gently. quietly. like he’d been trying not to alert anyone of his presence. his eyes dart to the wall clock, and it reads two minutes past three in the morning.

the boy squints his eyes in suspicion, but his head is a bit too fuzzy to really think properly, so he just takes another sip of the beer he’d been nursing for a few minutes now.

“mark!” jaemin grins, and only smiles brighter when mark acknowledges him with a polite wave. “it’s been weeks, where have you been?”

renjun isn’t as drunk as the others, and he eyes mark carefully. “you’re back so late. you look tired as fuck, no offence.” he quips, and donghyuck snorts from where he’s curled up beside jeno.

“right? he almost looks possessed or something!” donghyuck jokes, and jeno giggles along with him, saying something about the girl from that one movie, the ring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(renjun turns out to be the only one who notices the dirty smirk on minhyung’s face when he realises no one is paying attention to him anymore.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

donghyuck is on his way home with renjun in his passenger seat when he hears the news.

whichever annoying top 40 song had been blasting through the radio had been cut off somewhere in the middle, and renjun grumbled unhappily at the interruption.

 

“—schoolboys park jisung & zhong chenle, aged 17 & 18 respectively, have been found deceased in the forest only two acres from the very highschool they attended. authorities are investigating further into the deaths, and advise kindly to stay away from the area until further notice. more news later this evening.”

 

its quiet for a second, and donghyuck thinks he’ll have to pull over soon if the silence keeps up like this.

“what the hell,” renjun exhales shakily, his hands gripping the car seat dangerously tightly, until his hands turn white and the joints in his fingers start to ache.

yeah, well. donghyuck is definitely going to have to pull over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the funeral is rough, to say the least. donghyuck’s chest aches, and his eyes are painfully dry. his hand stays locked with renjun’s tightly as the pair cry, and cry some more over their friends’ deaths.

minhyung didn’t come to the funeral. didn’t hold donghyuck’s hand and tell him it’d be okay. didn’t even talk to him about what had happened to their younger friends.

“i’m so confused, renjun.” donghyuck had whispered that night, his face buried in the other boy’s shoulder. they’d be like that for a while. after all, he had promised to wait until minhyung would arrive home later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

zhong chenle & park jisung. best friends, and students at the local highschool of their tiny town.

they’re both talented— _were_ talented, until their bodies had been found slashed to pieces and bleeding out on the outskirts of the forest outside the boundaries of the very same highschool they attended, bones and innards exposed to anyone unlucky enough to find them.

a girl in jisung’s class, im yeojin, had been the unlucky one walking past after a class when she stumbled upon the bodies, choking on a sob and her chest tightening in panic.

she had screamed and cried into the phone to the police, and her body was found days later, this time on the riverside, closer to the city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the police investigated for three months after the deaths. three months of donghyuck waiting for his minhyung to just come home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

one day, minhyung doesn’t come home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the doors and windows are all locked, donghyuck was sure. he’d checked them multiple times throughout the night.

he hypothesises maybe that was the reason he was so unsure about the possibility of a stranger in his home, someone who had shown up without invitation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“minhyung—mark,” he would whisper into the phone that night. minhyung would reply with a croaked “duckie?”.

he sounds so tired, donghyuck thinks to himself, and somehow feels bad for calling like this. he wonders where he could possibly be, how tired he truly is.

distantly, he would hear a doorknob turn gently. quietly.

it’s familiar, but he couldn’t possibly place why. not in that moment, at least.

“there’s someone in the house, minhyung. some stranger—i don’t know,” he sobs, trying to muffle his cries with a hand.

“are you sure?” comes minhyung’s reply after a moment of heavy, tense silence. donghyuck’s first reaction is to splutter in disbelief, but he catches himself before he can give his position away.

“am i—am i sure? that there’s a person in my house?” donghyuck asks, eyes wide and eyebrows raised. the turning of doorknobs gets closer, and he thinks he can hear something scraping along the walls.

“did you lock the back stairwell door, duckie?”

“i—i think so? it’s not even an accessible point of entry, why does it matter—“

“then are you sure, that there’s a stranger in the house.”

there was no time to think about the way minhyung’s question was phrased, if it was truly a question at all. no time to wonder if he could get out in time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

donghyuck is in the bathroom when the door swings open, and he had screamed in such fright, that his voice had cut off embarrassingly. something minhyung would have laughed at months ago. still, it felt like forever had passed to donghyuck, until this moment, and he had only _just_ started to cry now, until he saw exactly who was in the doorway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“minhyung—“ he gasps, but is stopped when he sees the glint of reflected light in the corner of his line of sight.

donghyuck thinks distantly about the moonlight coming in through the window, but his mind draws a blank.

“i think you were right, duckie,” minhyung whispers, and he looks so small, like he’s trying to hold himself back. donghyuck starts to tremble. “about the stranger in the house.”

he sounds so desperate now, and donghyuck wants nothing more than to reach out and hold him. hide him away from whatever is clouding him like this.

but, he can’t.

he’s frozen in place, he know’s what’s going to happen. he’s shaking like a frightened animal on the cold tiles of his bathroom floor, and theres hot tears running down his face, onto the shirt minhyung had gave him all those years ago.

his chest aches, and he would love to be able to breathe right now. he hears what mark says, and he shuts his eyes. 

he waits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“except—i’m not a stranger.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> thankyou for reading !! this probably sucked so bad but its late & im very tired but i had to get this up before i lost my marbles
> 
> im happy to answer any questions in the comments or on my social media !! twt is @stonerkun420 , instagram is @sunndz


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